FOOD COMMISSION EVIDENCE.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume II, Issue 377, 26 April 1915, Page 4

FOOD COMMISSION EVIDENCE.

MISS ROUT IN DEFENCE. We have received the following letter from Miss E. A. Rout in connection with the report of certain evidence before the Food Commission: — To tho Editor of THE. SUN.

Sir,—Publication has been given by several newspapers to a letter signed by one of the witnesses (F. C. Ellis) heard by the Foodstuffs Commission last September, in which the following statement appears: — "Like Mr Fairbairn, I have never seen a report of my evidence. I asked Miss Rout, who was doing the reports, for a copy of my evidence, but this was refused. That was in September last. Since then I have heard nothing of the matter, and am now told that the Commission has never had brought before it any definite evidence as to exploitation. '' Mr Andrew' Fairbairn, auother September witness, has simultaneously repeated his complaint of being unable to obtain a copy of the report of his evidence. These statements constitute a reflection upon myself professionally, and I therefore make the following explanation:— About September 3, a certain Wellington reporter was engaged for this Commission's reporting. The appointment was made in the office of the Minister of Agriculture and Commerce (the Hon. Mr Massey) on the strength of a letter from the office of the Prime Minister (the Hon. Mr Massey). The Commission had nothing whatever to do with the appointment, nor with the control or payment of the reporter. From September 7 to September 13 this reporter (without the knowledge of the Commission, .as I subsequently learntu), came to my office daily for several hours for assistance in deciphering and transcribing his own shorthand notes. The work covered a little Wellington evidence, and about half the Christchurch evidence. It did not include any transcription of Mr Fairbairn's evidence. From September 14 to October, the Commission heard evidence in other parts of New Zealand, the shorthand notes still being taken by the department's reporter. On October 3 the reporter telegraphed to me from Wellington for further assistance. I was in Wellington all day October (5 and October 7, but (for reasons which need not be detailed here) could make no headway with the reports. On October 7 I definitely declined to have any further connection with the matter, and returned to Chf'istchurch that night. By that time the Commission had engaged another Wellington reporter on their own account. The shorthand notes taken by the department's reporter have, to the best of my knowledge, never been transcribed at all for the period September 7-Octo-ber I am quite certain that any reports alleged to have been made from them must be untrustworthy. I pointed out to the chairman of the Commission, in a letter dated September 13, the unreliability of the reports. That, letter never reached the chairman's hands. It was suppressed. I have seen the notes of Mr Andrew Fairbairn 's evidence twice —once in September, in Christchurch, and once in October in Wellington. On both occasions the department's reporter and myself found these notes indecipherable. The foregoing facts, as to the breakdown of the reporting arrangements, were not within the knowledge of the Commission for several weeks after it had been hearing evidence. Then, presumably, all that could be done was to trust to the forlorn hope of the department's reporter making something out of the shorthand notes taken by him. Apparently he made nothing out of them. These facts and others were

put ou record l»y me in an affidavit sworn before James Anderson, Es(f., J.P., Christchurch, on December 1, 19.14. It became necessary to file this affidavit because of some small difficulties which arose in Wellington in regard to the responsibility for payment of my account —difficulties which were happily overcome by the kind offices of Sir John Findlay and the near approach of the General Elections. The department passed a voucher through to me on December 4, and my connection with the preparation of reports of this Commission's proceedings was then entirely at an end. The matter lias now been re-opened by the para* graph quoted above, and I must divest myself of all responsibility for reports, the accuracy of which has been so seriously impugned in public newspapers. As to hot supplying witnesses with reports, I had no authority to do so. Such reports are issued by the secretary to the Royal Commission, under authority from the chairman. There was no reason at all why Mr Ellis should not have had a report of his evidence if he had applied to the secretary for it. There was every reason why Mr Fairbairn could not have had a report of his evidence. It was never supplied by the department's reporter to the Commission at all; in fact an ordinarily readable reliable report of Mr Fairbairn's evidence simply does not exist. The misapprehension that I was "doing the reports" sprang up through the telephoning from my office to some witnesses as to matters the shorthand notes left in considerable doubt. But the shorthand notes were not mine, and for the accuracy of the transcripts of the September evidence I have all along refused to vouch. —I am, etc.. E. A. ROUT, Authorised Reporter under The Shorthand Reporters' Aet. 02 Armagh Street, Christchureh, April 2;>, 19.15.